farmer leading
forth her pony. She went to the window and opened it wider.

"Please, Mr. Wanger, make it tight. He always swells himself out when
he sees he is going to be saddled. Then, when he has gone a little
distance, he lets himself in, and both the girths are hanging loose.
That's one of his tricks."

She leaned farther out and made further observation of the weather. As
the air was mild and the sky serenely blue (though you can never tell
about a Texas Norther), she took Sir Slicker by the nape of his
collar-band and dropped him out of the window to be lashed to the
saddle; then she turned to the mirror again, and, having done the best
she could with the hat, she went to take leave of the farmer's family,
who, as she judged by certain sounds, were assembled at the front of
the house awaiting her departure. But scarcely had she stepped into
the adjoining room and shut the door behind her, when the buxom,
blue-eyed Lena, rushing in from the porch, met her with a hug that was
more like a welcome than a leave-taking.

"Oh, goo-o-o-bye, Miss Janey. I am so-o-o sorry. I t'ink you are
so-o-o sweet and nice."

And then Lena, whose open Swiss nature was either at the summit of
happiness or down in the valley of despair, regarded her ruefully for a
space, and after one more hug and the shedding of two large healthy
tears, accompanied her out to the porch. There the Wangers were
waiting and the children standing in line to be kissed--quite as if she
were a dear relative, or at least an acquaintance of more than four
days' standing. Janet kissed them all; and having done so she
proceeded to the hitching-post, followed by the entire family, down to
little Jacob, who stationed himself at the very heels of the broncho,
and was so far forgotten by them all, in their concern with Janet's
affairs, that they did not think to rescue him from his perilous
situation till it was everlastingly too late, the horse having by that
time moved away. And then Jacob, who had been studying his elders
closely, after the manner of his tribe, guessed the meaning of those
farewell words which he had not been able to understand; and as she
drew away he opened his mouth and bawled.

Her route, which lay forty miles before her with but one stream to
ford, might be described as simply a fenced road on each side of which
was open prairie and the sky; for, though this land was all private
property, the holdings were so vast that the res